Walking in the fog

Coppertone and I logged our longest hike in some time here today.  We went all of the way into Jack London State Park to the park summit near the top of Sonoma Mountain.  Maybe one of these days they'll open up the expansion land and let us go all of the way to the true summit.

The trails involve some impressive elevation gain and a number of switchbacks, particularly after the first mile from the trailhead.

As we got to the peak we looked back into Sonoma Valley and was quickly enveloped in thick fog that cut visibility down to a couple hundred feet.  The speed with which it moved in was impressive.  We bided our time and enjoyed our snacks and water at the summit and within a few minutes the fog broke and we could see into the valley again.  Very neat.

As we descended the rolling fog continued to ebb and flow along the trail.  We lucked out in being able to get a glimpse of the Bennet Valley from the overlook half way up the mountain that we had skipped earlier in the hike.

A group of four hikers was ascending as we were working our way down and from a distance we thought a group of about 10 or more was approaching based on the noise level.  Outside of that outlier there was some decent solitude and quiet even though other trail users were never terribly far away.

At one point we came upon two deer foraging along the trail and got within about 50 feet of them.  They were cautious, but not particularly spooked by our presence and continued to work their way perpendicular to the trail and uphill, disappearing into some tree cover.  Not too long after that we heard, then spotted, two turkeys travelling parallel to the trail.

We saved the Umbrella Tree Trail for last, which turned out to be fitting.  The near 180 degree views there are some of the best in the park, even if the elevation there is not as high.